According to reports, a woman in Florida who owns a curio shop was selling real human remains, which are a bit too real for police officials.
One of the proprietors of Wicked Wonderland in Orange City, Florida, is 52-year-old Kymberlee Schopper. Police are accused Schopper of intentionally selling “genuine human remains,” which is against the law, despite the store’s pride in its varied and “delightfully eerie” products.
Schopper’s business partner “confirmed that the store had multiple human bone fragments, all purchased from private sellers,” according to an arrest warrant.
Police believe that Schopper stated the bone fragments were from “educational models” for which she had paperwork.
According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the case was initially discovered in December 2023 after a local woman alerted authorities to Wicked Wonderland’s sale of genuine bone fragments on its Facebook Marketplace page.
Police discovered other items for sale that were labeled on the page as “human” bone fragments, per the arrest warrant.
A variety of bone fragments were included in the warrant along with their prices: two pieces of human skull ($90); human clavicle and scapula ($90); human rib ($35); human vertebrae ($35); and a partial human skull ($600).
Ashley Lelesi, Schopper’s business partner, allegedly admitted to police that the store had been selling human bones on purpose for a number of years when they questioned her after the report was submitted.
Lelesi “confirmed that the store had multiple human bone fragments, all purchased from private sellers, and mentioned she has documentation for these transactions but could not provide it at the moment,” the warrant said. According to her, the bones are real human remains that are delicate.
During the police inspection, Lelesi was “nervous” and claimed to be unaware that it was illegal to sell human remains.
According to reports, Schopper told investigators that the bones were “educational models,” which were permitted to be sold in Florida. However, Captain Sherif El-Shami of Orange City Police informed that it was still unlawful to sell the remains in Florida, regardless of where they were bought.
Lelesi has not yet been arrested but will be charged as well.
Police seized the bones, according to the arrest complaint, and took them to the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s Office for examination and analysis.
Both the partial and fragmented skulls were probably discovered during archeological excavations. The estimated ages of the other bone fragments were 100 and 500 years.
“Schopper knowingly purchased and listed human bones for sale through Facebook Marketplace and their business website,” the investigators found in their study.
The purchase or selling of human tissue is a felony that Schopper was charged with after a 15-month investigation into Wicked Wonderland’s “oddities.” After posting a $7,500 bond, she was arrested on April 10 and taken to the Volusia County Jail. On May 1, Schopper is expected to be arraigned.
